Our second DVD release "Choppertown: From The Vault"

Hey Everybody,
Mike Horton suggested we post our new teaser, so here it is. "Choppertown: From The Vault" is the follow up to our debut "Choppertown: the Sinners", a feature doc about the Sinners motorcycle club. Neither film could have been completed without the LAFCPUG boards so thanks to all.

FCP Studio (newest version)
G5 DP
Flash 8 encode (we output to an uncompressed Quicktime file then to Flash 8 for progressive download)

Here's the link to our teasers page (all three of our teasers are there in Broadband 640x480 and dial-up 320x240.)

Choppertown Teasers



Zack Coffman
producer/director
Choppertown: the Sinners [www.choppertown.com]
Brittown: a Brit bike documentary [www.brittown.com]

MacBook Pro Intel Core 2 Duo 15" 2.4Ghz
Matte Screen
4 GB Corsair Ram
OWC 1TB Raid
Dell 2405FPW
FCP 6.0.4
OSX 10.5.5

I feel like you've gone a little too much for the energy and not enough for the meat -- who are the bikers in the film? Who's the main character? Where are they? Why a film (or shall we say, another film) about them now -- what's special in their life, or in society? Is there *any* plot?

How do you want to make this *the* biker movie to watch, aside from any number of movies about bikers out there?

You have more than enough "nice bike shots". Use the second half of the trailer/teaser and get closer to your subjects, let them speak instead of that same ol' song. Otherwise I get the impression that this is a DVD from the "Special Interest" section, without any distinction from a Harley-Davidson promo piece.


www.derekmok.com

thanks for the comments derek, good points! also i fixed the link.

zc

To get me to buy this DVD, I'd need to know a little about these guys. Are they simply Bike aficionados or an "Outlaw" gang? They accountants by day and bad boys on the weekend? What's special about them? I imagine there is lots of footage in your doc about them, so show us them in the teaser.

Pretty bikes though and some really impressive shots.

I'm sorry to be the disappointed one here, but, when I read "choppers", I was expecting a lot more. The trailers look like videos from youtube. If it wasn't for the film festival winner slate, I would have thought it was a music video from some garage band.

There is a definite craft for trailers. You need to watch some. Also, watch some skateboard videos. A lot of editing techniques from those can be applied here. There is a parallel between skateboarders and bikers.....the raw, gritty, steel and concrete feel.....the look of outlaws, social outcasts, dangerous bad boys.

Use more music selections, build the pace, you started off on one of your teasers with some nice beauty shots of the bikes (personally, I'd like to see more of those), start from there and build, more of that Harley sound for chrissakes, let's hear from these guys, there have to be some great quick natural sounds that would help create some tension, especially with the fight and the gun firing, don't hang so long on shots once the pace gets going, the long freeway shots do nothing.

The camera work is pretty uninspiring. Is the low color level a choice? Right now it looks like old 8mm video. Maybe find a way to make the "look" more unique. Play with some filters.

I agree with Michael....what's the story?.....is this just a film noir of daily lives, or is there something going on or going to happen?.....whet our appetite....tease us....make us want to buy the DVD!

Cameron Young